


No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

by redcandle17



Category: Mad Max Series (Movies)
Genre: Dark, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-12
Updated: 2015-07-12
Packaged: 2018-04-08 21:32:11
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4321503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redcandle17/pseuds/redcandle17
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The second revolution happens because the first revolution was too successful. The Wives and Furiosa did too good a job of convincing the War Boys of their own personhood and of destroying the myth of Immortan Joe the god.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

**Author's Note:**

  * Translation into Русский available: [Ни одно доброе дело не остаётся безнаказанным](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5665297) by [vttstn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/vttstn/pseuds/vttstn)



The second revolution happens because the first revolution was too successful. The Wives and Furiosa did too good a job of convincing the War Boys of their own personhood and of destroying the myth of Immortan Joe the god. They did not foresee that a group of angry and disillusioned young men who knew nothing but war would arrive at this conclusion: If Joe was only a man who’d seized _everything_ for his own through force, then why shouldn’t they do the same?

Furiosa does not return from what was supposed to be a routine supply run to Gas Town. The Wives are too grief-stricken at first to realize the shift in power. The War Boys are not as deferential as they were before, but it goes unnoticed until their leaders decide to take the former god’s wives for their own wives. 

Two of them are arguing over Capable, and a strong arm has already pulled Toast back against a broad chest. That is when she realizes that Furiosa’s death was no tragic accident. She can only hope that it was quick, that Furiosa died without time to realize what was happening. 

“She’s pregnant!” Cheedo is screaming at the War Boy who has seized the Dag by the hair. Cheedo is still clinging to her. “She’s pregnant with your Immortan’s baby, don’t hurt her.”

But their reverence for Joe is gone and so is any protection it afforded the Wives. “Yeah?” replies the War Boy. “Have to get it out of her then, so I can put my pup in there.” He slams a fist into the Dag’s belly, and all four Wives scream out as if they all feel the pain.

One of the ones who’d been arguing over Capable gives up and grabs Cheedo by the waist, putting an end to her attempt to shield the Dag. The Dag is crumpled on the ground and Toast sees the War Boy kicking her in the belly before she herself is carried away from the brutal scene. 

She’s barely aware of what’s happening as her new owner rapes her. It can’t have all gone so wrong so fast. They’d been making the Citadel a good place to live. And now, now it was worse than ever. 

The War Boys expel everyone they deem useless from the Citadel, casting back down those Wretched who’d only been risen up a hundred days past. The little boys who the Wives had been caring for, who’d no longer been painted white and shaven bald, they become War Pups once more. 

Not all the Wives’ changes are undone. The War Boys like having new and more varied food and so the Dag is allowed to continue tending her garden. She had miscarried, and though Toast knew the Dag never loved or wanted Joe’s ugly baby, the manner of its loss has broken all their hearts. 

The sun sets and rises and sets again and eventually a new normalcy is established in the Citadel. The four leaders of the War Boys move into the Dome and divide Joe’s things between them just as they’d divided his wives. 

Toast learns the name of her new ‘husband’ by hearing his fellow War Boys call to him; he never bothers introducing himself to her. He doesn’t talk much to her, though his appetite for her body is nearly insatiable. He’s energetic and certainly not gentle, but he’s not perverse, not like Joe. Toast knows it’s not as bad as it could be, not in that regard. 

The War Boy who claimed Capable has no qualms about sharing her, giving her to his friends and followers whenever it suits his fancy. It turns out to be his downfall, for Capable has the ability to reach whatever light remains in the darkest of hearts. Scarcely thirty days past before one of her husband’s friends challenge him to combat. He is killed and it is understood without being spoken that his killer will now take possession of all that was his - including Capable. 

Capable’s new husband seems to almost love her, and Toast is relieved for her. Toast had expected to be locked up again like Joe had kept her locked up, but her current husband doesn’t seem to care what she does as long as she’s in his bed at night. 

He encounters her training with a group of older Pups one day and criticizes her stance. Toast has had too much and something just frays and she slams the heel of her hand up into his chin as hard as she can. His head snaps back and he exclaims in pain. Toast braces herself for the beating that is sure to come. 

But it doesn’t come. Her husband laughs and tells her it was a well executed move. He seems proud of her. He tells her to leave the Pups and he’ll show her how to fight. He never lays a hand on her except when they’re sparring, and Toast resents that she has to be grateful for it.

The Dag’s husband doesn’t wake up one morning. The other War Boys crowd around him and not one of them can figure out how he died. “Must have been night fever,” they finally decide, though he had been among the healthiest of them. Another War Boy takes his place as a leader and husband. 

On one of the now-rare occasions when the four wives are alone together, Cheedo tearfully confides that she is pregnant. 

“They had herbs to take care of that, when it’s still early,” the Dag said. “Keeper of the Seeds told me about it.”

And so Toast isn’t surprised when Cheedo later has what seems like a miscarriage. 

The Wives do not pin their hopes on escape this time. There is no one to save them and no safe place to run to. The third revolution takes shape slowly. At first they do not make plans, but merely voice aloud what-if’s and maybe’s. Then it all comes together. 

“They all have to die at once,” Toast says. “If all their leaders are dead, the younger War Boys won’t know what to do and we can regain control.”

“But not yet,” Capable says. “We have to prepare.”

“My special plant died,” the Dag tells them regretfully. And for a moment Toast thinks she’s referring to the abortifacient, but then she continues, “We’ll have to do it the messy way.”

Toast tries not to think that her husband would prefer a violent, bloody death - a warrior’s death - and how she’s almost relieved for his sake that she won’t be able to poison him. 

The Wives talk carefully to the Milk Mothers, the Repair Boys who are unfit to be War Boys, the workers who work the treadmill - treadmill rats, Joe and his War Boys called them - and even the little War Pups. They do not speak of revolution, of openly and violently resisting the new masters of the Citadel. Instead they make sure that the people still long for something better, that they cherish those hundred days of hope before Furiosa’s assassination. 

One evening the wives look at each other and they know: it is time. They all worry that Cheedo won’t be able to do it. Toast puts a finger under the younger wife’s ribs. “Here,” she murmurs. “Just shove it in here and up, and it’ll be over right away.” 

“You can do it,” Capable reassures Cheedo. But when Toast looks at Capable’s eyes, she suspects she won’t be the only one who almost regrets what they have to do. 

Her husband is ecstatic with her enthusiastic reaction to him in bed that night. He’s almost affectionate afterwards, and Toast challenges him to fuck her again. And again, just to be sure he’ll be tired and sleeping soundly tonight. 

When the moon is at the highest point of the sky, Toast slides out of bed and picks up one of her husband’s knives. He’s a lancer and so she’d wondered why he carried no less than two knives on him at all times. He’d been happy to tell her all about the times he’d killed rival raiders and maimed ferals to be taken as captives, after his lances had disabled their vehicles. 

There is no doubt that he deserves an untimely death. Still, Toast hesitates a moment too long. His eyes open when she straddles him and she sees his surprise when he spots the knife. She slits his throat in one clean move she thinks he’d be proud of. 

It’s not as fast a death as she’d always heard, and she’s crying silently as she stumbles out of their bedroom. Capable is already there and the Dag joins them soon. Their hands are bloody too. They exchange a look and then they all hurry to help Cheedo. 

But Cheedo doesn’t need their help. Her War Boy husband is already dead. She must have stabbed him dozens of times and she’s still driving the knife into his body and pulling it out to stab him again and again. 

The Dag and Capable pull her off him and begin calming her. Toast goes to the bathing pool in the center of the Dome and begins cleaning the blood from her hands. Only then she realizes it’s also on her face and chest, and so she just climbs into the pool.

There’s an idiom in one of the books Miss Giddy had taught from: _no good deed goes unpunished._ If they hadn’t insisted Furiosa send out salvage crews to rescue the injured War Boys who’d been trapped in the canyon pass, if they’d expelled them to wander the Wasteland as rogues instead of trying to reintegrate them into the reformed Citadel, if, if, if.

The sun will rise on a new regime in the morning and this time the Wives will not be so naive. 


End file.
